Disclaimer: If I owned Star Wars, we'd all be watching JJK/YJK/NJO animes on TV, which don't exist outside of the world of fanart, unfortunately.
Title: The Curse
Author: SilSolo/Master Solo
Summary: What fun would it be if I gave away the story?
Time: way post-NJO
Keywords: Ossus, OC, Skywalkers, Jedi
Genre: angst?
Notes: I lifted some parts from the movies and comic books; those are based solely on what I saw and heard, not anything in any books. This fic's based on a comment that someone in one of my Yahoo Groups made about the Skywalker Curse of losing arms (I need to stop getting plot bunnies from random comments on message boards). Oh, and for those of you who read Anakae and got confused, if I ever rewrite that, I'll list some of the details of DJ just to clear things up (forgot that some J/TK'ers didn't read NJO).
"Prince-Master Ulic! Your tentacle!" Shouted an aghast Mairan student as he rushed into the scene. The colossal Jedi Knight knelt beside the fallen Hapan Jedi Master and cradled the man with a thick, wet tentacle. With another tentacle, the Mairan scooped the severed arm off the duracrete floor of the spaceport. He bit back his disgust as blood spattered from the lost limb upon the gentlest squeezed that the Mairan could manage.
The Jedi prince was a pitiful sight. His too-perfect-to-be-real, medium sized body was sprawled on the hard duracrete floor of the planet and a neon blue blade projected from the man's remaining, outstretched hand even though the duel had already ended. Fresh, warm blood oozed from multiple injuries to form a pond the size of his back.
iYour tentacle/i The Mairan's voice echoed in Prince Ulic's ears. He had lost his arm when the traitor's blade seared through the midpoint between his elbow and his shoulder. He had lost to the Sith, just like every other Skywalker male who had encountered darksiders. In his agony, his vision blurred, and the Spartan, half-completed spaceport of Ossus became a grand hybrid between an empty warehouse and a hangar.
"Brave of you, boy, but I thought you had learned your lesson." Before the Jedi stood a regal, old man in a fine, brown cloak.
"I am a slow learner." The person from whose eyes Ulic saw his vision replied somewhat cockily. In the young Jedi's hand was a green blade that someone resembled that of Jacen Solo's.
Someone shouted something that sounded like Annie's full name, and a blue saber similar to the one Ulic used leapt into the young Jedi's free hand. Blue and green clashed against the crimson Sith-saber as four feet danced in a fashion all too familiar to Jedi Master Ulic. The dance abruptly paused as an unanticipated slice from the Sith weapon reduced the green blade to a charred, useless crystal and a battery encased in burnt plastic.
The Jedi's reflexes were quick and he dropped the useless weapon before Ulic had time to react to what he had witnessed. The duel became the smash of the Jedi's blue and Sith's red that Ulic had experienced only seconds ago. The Jedi saw every intention of the aging Sith man and blocked each attack as the two danced to the rapid beat of the Force.
As the Jedi began to gain a slight advantage over the white-haired, Sith opponent, Ulic recognized a fatal, untimely surge of overconfidence, which drove the somewhat arrogant Jedi to remove one hand from the hilt of the lightsaber.
iNo…/i Prince Ulic thought as the Sith took his opportunity and sliced through one of the Jedi's arms. The prince grimaced as he once again experienced a three-meter flight through air propelled by the pain from losing a limb. The vision blackened as the young Jedi from the duel lost consciousness.
The prince blinked in an effort to rid his eyes of the duel that he had witnessed. For a second, he thought he was successful, but he groaned as he found himself in an unfamiliar place once again. Prince Ulic tried to recall his previous vision, and to his surprise, he found distant memories of it and a response filled with hatred.
iWhat does this mean/i The prince wondered. He looked down and regretted it almost instantly. He was standing on a thin piece of metal that hovered at least several kilometers from anything that could be called the ground. Statistics from an unknown computer indicated low air pressure, and Ulic shuddered to think about his fear of heights.
The Hapan prince calmed himself in the midst of his dream from the Force. iThis isn't logical. I am lying on the surface of a stable planet and this person, whoever he is, will not fall. Now, what does the familiarity mean? What I just felt means that the duel with the old man is his memory, and given the degree of the match, he must be the Jedi with the blue lightsaber./i Ulic drew on the logic he learned in the early math courses and reasoned.
"You are beaten; it is useless to resist. Don't let yourself be destroyed, as Obi-Wan did." The deep, droid-like voice came from the mouth of the person who showed Ulic the vision. Before the impressive figure cowered a blonde man whom Ulic instantly recognized as a young version of Luke Skywalker.
iHigh up, low pressure, Uncle Luke around ten years younger than myself, and a mention of Master Kenobi… Sithspit! Vader's showing me his fight with Uncle Luke on Bespin/i Jedi Master Ulic gasped in horror as he realized that his great-grandfather was showing him memories. iWhat do you want with me, Vader/i
The Jedi Master watched in a helpless horror as his great-grandfather drove the leader of the Jedi Order backwards in a familiar clash of red and blue. Luke Skywalker was carefully balanced on a narrow strip of white metal. The duel was slower than the first one, but the somewhat delirious prince caught only the ending, when Vader's evil sword chopped down a support beam to reach his target.
Prince Ulic attempted to drop his eyelids, only to remember that they were already closed. A scream brought the Jedi Prince back to his vision. The blue lightsaber was gone. iAs is Uncle Luke's hand/i The horrified Ulic thought as the vision blackened.
iBlue and red, oh I gotta get that flash out of my head! What is Vader trying to tell me/i Ulic wondered the minute he was able to find peace. iOkay, think, brain! Think through this pain! This is nothing compared to what Father went through. What do these visions have in common/i The Hapan prince ordered himself.
"Well, I was wondering for the last fifteen years when my turn would come." A familiar, male voice commented.
"Master Skywalker, what do you mean by your turn?" Asked a voice whom Ulic recognized as one of the men who sought to rebuild Ossus after the explosion of ten stars sterilized the planet. iBen/i The prince thought as he heard his cousin's name. By blood, Ben was an uncle, but the two thought of each other as cousins because of the mere four-year difference in age. The eyelids peeled off the prince's green eyes, and sure enough, there was the blur of red and brown that anyone would recognize as Ben Skywalker.
"When I dug through some of the old files and found out that my grandfather lost an arm to a Sith just like Dad did, I thought I was next in line and I always expected a Sith to attack me. Ulic, you're awake! Go back to your trance!" Ben shouted when he noticed that his cousin's eyes were open.
"Master Skywalker, he is a prince. If you want the order to be effective, you should give it through one of his sisters." The Mairan suggested.
iSithspit! Ben's right! It all makes sense now! Skywalkers have a thing for losing limbs and it's my turn! Every generation a Skywalker gets an arm cut off, it seems. But then, there's a skip between Uncle Luke and me/i Insight flood Ulic. iNo, there wasn't. Anakin Solo would have been next had he not died, since Father and Ben are in one piece. That means Annie… no, her feminine side will save her from the curse that seems to only hit males. But why me? At least I have no more family than just one niece to take my sister's place one day./i Ulic attempted to sit, but the pain held him back.
The prince closed his eyes once again. He could not fathom why in the Force he had to lose an arm to a student who betrayed him. He muttered. "Perhaps, such is the way of the Skywalkers. Curse you, Vader, for telling me too late, and you, Father, for not saying anything at all about this!"
"Wait." Commanded an unfamiliar voice. Prince Ulic opened his eyes and saw a half-transparent stranger floating above him. The man was around medium height and had a black mark similar to a Yuuzhan Vong scar on his forehead.
"As my successor, you carried my curse, too." The ghost informed.
"What? This gets worse?" The Hapan managed weakly.
"I'll show you when you close your eyes." The Hapan Prince did not want to witness more horrors, but an innate curiosity drove him to drop his eyelids once again. Engines hummed and faint sobs could be heard barely over the noise.
"Ulic, you are forever cursed for what you have done. See what has come from your own pride and your appetite for revenge." A red-haired woman rushed into the scene and held up her hands as if to claw someone with her dagger-like, red-brown fingernails. She glowed yellow-white from the amount of Force energy that amassed in her body.
The Hapan prince sensed much grief and remorse from On the dirt floor of Ossus laid a man, a Jedi apparently, with a bloodstained visage. The man's white-blonde hair was only a shade lighter than that of Prince Ulic's and he seemed to be in the same position as the Hapan prince.
"Cay, Cay, forgive me!" Tears streamed down the face of the one who showed the prince his vision. The woman said something, but grief deafened the listener to her words.
"Nomi, what are you doing? Hasn't there been enough…" shouted a yellow-green Twi'lek Jedi at the edge of the scene shouted. iSo that woman is called Nomi./i The Hapan prince then searched the memory of the one presenting him with the vision. iNomi Sunrider, as in the one Tione talked about! And that dead guy is Cay Qel-Droma./i
Everything became white for a second, and then the Hapan found himself back in his own time.
"You are my namesake, Qel-Droma! So I am cursed because I am named after you and because you killed your brother. We all thought you were a great hero of the Sith War." The Hapan prince spat out.
"Right. Every Jedi who takes this name is cursed to be stripped of the Force at least once." The words echoed in the prince's head and he remembered the last moments of his duel with the Sith traitor. The Force was flowing through him like a river, but suddenly, there was nothing at all outside the five senses, as if ysalamiri had been implanted into his body. The Jedi Master made his mistake in freezing as a result of the surprise and Raydron Nadd took the opportunity to chop off an arm. The defense that the handsome prince had responded with was only swift enough halt the Sith's blow for the chest.
The Hapan prince allowed himself to go limp in the Mairan Jedi's tentacle. Of all the luck, four thousands years worth of curses came crashing upon one man, with one malediction bringing about the other. The Force once again flowed through Prince Ulic of Hapes, but his best arm was lost to his worst enemy. On the desolate surface of Ossus, on the exact spot where the Qel-Droma brothers dueled, laid Prince Ulic, representative of the Hapes Consortium on the Jedi Council and viceroy over the Hapan Jedi. iI am cursed and I am now nothing but a ripped puppet of the Force. All those years of work were reduced to nothing when the Force willed for my true destiny to come./i Ulic sighed and resigned himself to his fate, for such was the grim way of a Force that not even a prince could control.
Timeline for The Sith War for those of you who didn't read it
Aleema uses Sith technology to ignite ten stars near Ossus and kills herself in the process
The Qel-Droma brothers get into a fight and Cay dies
Nomi Sunrider strips Ulic Qel-Droma of the Force
A Jedi Master buries some treasures/artifacts under the great library of Ossus
Exar Kun steals some Jedi knowledge and walks off to Yavin
The Jedi +former Sith get off the planet
The shockwave from the stars scorches Ossus' surface clean of life and civilization
Phew that is another plot bunny kicked out of my head and onto the Internet. Now back to that Nom scene that I was working on. colorblackbIF YOU WANT SPOILERS, HIT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORES BECAUSE THE ROTS BOOK IS iOUT/i/b/color